Why? In addition to hopes for a first crack at rare vinyl, attendees will be vying for a prime listening spot in a record 213 listening rooms. That’s eight more than last year, spread across eight floors in multiple areas…
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The largest and most important audio show in the United States, AXPONA, is poised to open in the greater Chicago area’s sprawling Schaumburg Renaissance Hotel & Convention Center. Well before the three-day show opens on Friday, April 11 at 10am, you can expect scores of eager attendees lining up at the long registration desk in the Convention Center lobby.
At the 2013 High End Show, in Munich, a tonearm designer displayed a pivoting tangential tracker. A nearly invisible length of monofilament wrapped around the arm's perimeter controlled the pivoting headshell of the box-girder–like arm.
It may very well have worked as promised, but was it practical? And with so many tiny moving parts, would it sound any good? I don't know—it was a silent display—and inquisitive attendees kept bumping the difficult-to-see monofilament, dislodging it from its track.
The odds weren't good that this contraption, however well intended, would ever get…
The RF tonearm sits on a massive base that will unbalance sprung-subchassis turntables.
Setting Up the ViV Labs Rigid Float
Though the one-sheet accompanying the Rigid Float 9 says "just put it anywhere," that's not quite true. The tonearm comes with an L-shaped alignment jig that you put over the spindle (the hole is too big and the fit is sloppy). As with SME's alignment system, you line up the straight arm tube directly over the jig, but instead of sliding the arm along a track to set overhang, you set underhang by manually moving the base until the stylus sits in a tiny,…
The PS Audio room on the ground floor drew a full house for Paul McGowan’s much-publicized “The Great Reveal.” No music was played during the 20-minute presentation, but McGowan, PS Audio’s founder and resident raconteur, easily kept the crowd engaged.
He introduced three new components, each described in the full presentation. If you listen closely, you might even catch me confusing an acronym or two. McGowan, to his credit, let it slide. As Gloria Gaynor once sang, “I Will Survive.”
Arturo Manzano, a longtime admirer of Koetsu phono cartridges, has reassembled Koetsu’s original team of artisans to bring the acclaimed brand back to the international market.
“Koetsu was one of the first brands I distributed after I founded AXISS Audio Distribution over 30 years ago,” Manzano explained outside one of AXISS’s many rooms at AXPONA. “I was despondent that, following the 2023 death of Fumihiko Sugano, son of Koetsu founder and designer Yoshiaki Sugano, this touchstone brand was no longer available. So, with my new company, Analog2Fidelity, I’ve brought together the original…
High Water Sound’s Jeffrey Catalano could give a master class in room setup. A veteran of hundreds of audio shows, he not only presents exceptional-sounding rooms but also curates adventurous vinyl selections. I invariably leave his room with music titles scribbled in my notebook, like recipes for marvelous dishes.
At this year’s AXPONA, Catalano showcased an impressive array of cartridges, including a DaVa Soul Field ($9750), a Fuuga ($9995), a Red Sparrow ($16,500), and a Miyajima Infinity ($3745), each mounted on a TW-Acustic Raven 10.5" ($6000), TW-Acustic Raven 12" ($6500), or Glanz…
At an early-morning breakfast, Michael Børresen, co-founder and chief designer of Audio Group Denmark, unveiled the Børresen M2 loudspeakers ($190,000/pair) and their companion Bass Modules (price to be announced). Also shown for the first-time North-American audience was the Aavik R-880 phono preamplifier ($70,000), designed to work with DS Audio optical cartridges. The R-880 enables users to adjust high cut, low cut, and absolute phase on the fly.
Børresen described the M2s as an attempt to retain the sonic qualities of their inspiration—the larger M3s—in a cabinet sized for…
John DeVore brings more than music to his rooms: he brings thoughtfulness, a sense of discovery, and superbly curated recordings.
At AXPONA 2025, DeVore’s system featured a Well Tempered Lab Kauri Mk II MC cartridge ($2000), mounted to the integrated tonearm of a Well Tempered Lab Versalex turntable ($4850). A Grimm Audio MU2 streaming DAC/preamplifier ($17,500) handled digital.
Amplification included a Leben RS-30EQ tube MM phono preamp ($3495) and a Leben CS-600X 30Wpc EL34 integrated tube amplifier ($8995), driving DeVore Fidelity Gibbon Super Nine loudspeakers. The Nines are…
Kathryn Dawn Lang was country ... until she wasn't. A native of the Canadian province of Alberta, lang (who prefers her name lowercase) grew obsessed with Patsy Cline and country music in general before she was out of college. She joined the Patsy-focused country act The Reclines in 1983 in Edmonton. They released their first album, A Truly Western Experience, in 1984.
Styled as "cowpunk" by many, the album caught the ear of pub-rocker Dave Edmunds, who produced the band's next, rockier album, Angel with a Lariat. That album, in turn, found its way to Patsy Cline's one-time producer Owen…
Joe Henderson: Multiple
Milestone/Craft CR 00845 (LP). 1973/2025. Orrin Keepnews, prod.; Elvin Campbell, Al Vanderbilt, engs.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
Milestone/Craft CR 00845 (LP). 1973/2025. Orrin Keepnews, prod.; Elvin Campbell, Al Vanderbilt, engs.
Performance ****½
Sonics ****½
The essence of jazz is supposed to be the free-flowing exploration of ideas and expressions. Yet hardcore fans of the music have the unnerving habit of supporting and denigrating the work of the same player from record to record. Artistic growth is often seen as a negative. Even devoted fans might not follow an artist who veers off into a stylistic direction they abhor. The classic example is Miles Davis, who went through…